GC sales in Japan/Mario Sunshine

Shred

Against Sony's best efforts, the Gamecube sales in Japan have taken a hefty hike since Mario Sunshine has been released:

http://www.cube-europe.com/newsphp/news.php?id=1286

Games Radar gave the game quite a favorable review too:

http://www.gamesradar.com/reviews/default.asp?subsectionid=168&articleid=63801&pagetype=2

I read somewhere a while ago (Gamesradar, I think) that Sony were spending 1Billion Yen in an effort to take the attention away from the release of the game

1Billion Yen wasted so:D

Shinji

Gamesradar isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on for stuff like this.

Sony has run a 1bn yen marketing campaign over the summer, which wasn't aimed at Mario Sunshine in particular at all... Actually mostly it was focused on promoting their two key titles, My Summer Vacation 2 and Genso Suikoden III.

Mario Sunshine is certainly superb, but it doesn't threaten Sony in any way in Japan. 27,400 Cubes were sold in the week that Sunshine was released.... But so were about 60,000 PS2s, going on previous figures.

Neither Nintendo nor Microsoft can possibly overtake the PS2 this time round. But then again, it's not about being first, is it? It's about making money out of your console and having loads of good games on it. Who cares about the competition if the games are good and you're rolling in the money?

Giblet

Yes exactly. A console cant be defined as being the best just from its sales. I keep hearing people say that Nintendo and Microsoft are going bust because there selling poorly. I doubt it, There still raking in the money allright, even though they haven't got the most popular consoles. Feck it, I'm slowly but surely on the way to owning all 3, and then I will be able to play whatever games i want. I still play my DC more than any other though.

Shinji

Microsoft aren't raking in anything, they're losing a fortune on Xbox. They can afford to, though.

Ninty are making a pretty penny, mind.

Giblet

Microsoft are still making profits I meant, even though there not from X Box

Shinji

Oh yeah, of course. I don't think it's fair to compare the overall profits of Microsoft to the profits of the games division of Sony or Nintendo, though - the Xbox financials should be considered seperately.

Greenbean

This Xbox diversion of theirs is probably going to be something similar to everything MS has done in the past. Spend loads of money and do it wrong, spend loads of money and probably do it wrong again, keep spending money until they get it right - choke the competition with sheer wealth (or lawsuits). Reap rewards of market dominance later. Everyone keeps saying they won't give up this fight - it horrifies them that sony might end up with basically a computer in everyone's household that is capable of connecting to the internet; thats exactly what they want - control over your terminal into the net.

Raskolnikov

I always thought that Sony/Nintendo etc always made a loss from selling the actual consoles themselves but made all there money back+extra from the licensing fee which they get from each game sold?

Dont be at yourself

Yep, that's generally true. Though eventually, as the manufacturers develop cost cutting techniques, they lose less and less. From what I've heard, Nintendo's loss on each GC sold is nominal - I even heard they expect to turn a profit on the hardware next year.

Shinji

Yep, Ninty will profit on hardware within 12 months, most likely. Right now their loss is so small that it's covered by the purchase of a single game - you buy a Cube and one game, and they've broken even. Buy a Cube and two games, and they've made a profit.

The Xbox on the other hand, is nowhere NEAR breaking even. The prices of the hardware in it don't fall as fast as they should, because the tech belongs to Intel and NVIDIA, not to Microsoft - clever decision at the time, but it prevents the price from falling sufficently over the lifespan of the console. Microsoft's own estimates say that the cost of building an Xbox will not fall below $170 in the next five years; given the price of the console is ALREADY $199, and will have to fall again to match Sony several times in the coming years, it's fair to say that they will never come close to break-even on hardware.

Bluehair

Still trying to find the link again but i read recently that M$ have already redesigned the Xbox to make a kinda son-of-Xbox. No spec upgrades but some integration into a smaller package and new enclosure (kinda like PS to PS1), their feedback suggests that everyone hates the huge size of the thing.

Expected launch was in time for this Christmas! (now wheres that damn link again... )